This invention pertains to a display casket for removably holding a body display container wherein the display casket may have a conventional appearance and with insertion and removal of a display container through an opening provided by a pivoted rear wall of the display casket.
The prior art includes many examples of attempts to provide a body display and burial system wherein a conventional-appearing casket may be used for display and a separate body-holding container may, thereafter, be removed from the casket for burial or other disposal and with repeated use of the casket. Examples of such attempts disclosed in patents include Beranek U.S. Pat. No. 2,289,406, Johnsen U.S. Pat. No. 3,133,334, Doggett U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,282, and Havey U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,337. Except for the Doggett patent, these patents have casket and body-holding structure in which the one or the other thereof must be lifted or lowered for separation after display or the use of complicated structure, such as transport rollers shown in Johnsen. Doggett has several embodiments which do include lifting or lowering of the units for separation, but does diagrammatically illustrate removal of a body-holding container from an end of the casket. All of the above patents disclose structures which involve cumbersome handling of the body display container in insertion and removal relative to the casket and with a likelihood of possibly dropping a heavy container with body during the handling.